The purpose of this presentation is to move beyond theory and apply real world experience to implementing a culturally competent behavioral health system. While many agencies employ a person responsible for ensuring that care is provided in a manner that meets the needs of all those served by the agency, the reality is that these individuals often have to compete with many priorities which makes achieving their objectives difficult. And agencies often have trouble achieving the goals, proposed in their own plans. Oversight of these plans is often limited and does not reflect the actual needs of an agency to achieve its goal.

This presentation will explore those barriers and challenges and provide steps to help mitigate them to help the agency grow.

Objectives:

• Discuss the barriers and challenges encountered toward achieving cultural proficiency
• Provide an overview of how to structure a plan
• Provide real world strategies of how to bolster a system’s ability to be more culturally proficient